SNOW HILL — The opening of an intermediate school has created a need for new playground equipment at West Greene Elementary, said Karen Crawford, an exceptional children's teacher.

For years, West Greene — one of the oldest schools in the county with 76 percent of the students receiving free lunches — has housed grades 3-5. Starting this year, the school is teaching grades 2-3.

So when Crawford heard about Clorox's Power A Bright Future grant, she began to think of what would benefit a school with limited resources and younger children.

“We have such wonderful ideas of what we'd like to do,” she said.

The grant includes three categories — play, create and explore. Crawford chose play because the current playground is dated and built mainly for the older children who used to attend there.

There is one swing set with four swings, two small jungle gyms and a concrete slab with one basketball hoop. Around the playground is a wide-open grassy area that isn't being utilized well, she said.

“We've got the room,” Crawford said, “but we don't have the resources to really develop it.”

After some brainstorming, she came up with some ideas for equipment and activity areas. She developed a project list that includes a new swing set and jungle gym, a community walking track around the entire playground and grassy area, a covered wooden picnic shelter with plenty of benches and tables and a sports field for playing softball, kickball and soccer.

“It would be nice if we had a picnic shelter outside,” Crawford said. The shelter would provide an outdoor lunch area and a place to hold parties or a field day or provide messy activities and experiments better suited for outdoors, she said.

The school currently ranks No. 77 out of 504 nominations in the play category.

The school that receives the most total votes of all three categories will win $50,000. A school from each category with the highest number of votes will each receive $25,000. There will also be three schools, one from each category, that will be the judges' pick. Each will also receive $25,000.

Anyone can vote for West Greene online on a computer and by using a mobile phone online and by sending a text. All three ways to vote can be done daily until the deadline, Dec. 19.

“We need to have that last-minute push from everybody,” Crawford said. “It is something that would benefit the community.”

Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com.

Breakout box:

Vote for West Greene Elementary by computer, mobile phone and texting once each day through Dec. 19.